


Amazing Grace, Part Five

by itstonedme



Series: Amazing Grace [5]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-03
Updated: 2009-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:44:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Depression-era AU in the U.S. southeast.  A migrant comes upon a teenage boy living with his father in rural Tennessee.  Originally posted on LJ in August 2009 <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/23918.html#cutid1">here</a> with reader comments.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: A work of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amazing Grace, Part Five

"I could use a swim, wash this stink off me," Orlando told the old man the following afternoon once the last of the day's rails had been set in place. 

They were, in fact, the last of the week's rails, the last of the job's rails, the last of Orlando's reason for being there, but no mention had yet been made of the fact.

"'Lijah, show him where the swimming hole'd be at," the old man directed, managing in seven words to bypass both Orlando and his name. 

Orlando suspected that perhaps this was how mention was going to be made of the fact.

The eyes of both young men met and held, Orlando's blankly puzzled, Elijah's blankly cautious. 

"Might be you could bring home something to eat while you're at it," the old man added.

Orlando smiled at Elijah. "Let's go catch some fish," he said. 

***

The swimming hole was actually part of the fast-moving creek from which Elijah fished, only further upstream where the eddying water from the main channel had cut into the shoreline over the past few hundred years to create a deep basin with steep banks and overhanging trees. 

"Any snakes I should know about?" Orlando asked, drawing up short behind Elijah. 

"Ain't snakes in the water you need to be 'fraid of," Elijah replied. The heat of Orlando's nearness made him blink slowly.

Orlando eyed the overhead branches. "That's not reassuring," he observed.

"Not in the trees neither," Elijah added as he led the way onwards.

" _Where_ then, mate?" Orlando said testily.

Elijah smirked, his head turned away, and pointed to a darkened part of the bank where the grass had lost the battle to moss. "If you go in over there, you can at least see what bit ya."

Orlando fixed him with a stare. 

"Just joshing," Elijah smiled. "Water's too fast for snakes, and most of the copperheads and rattlers are inland." Nonetheless, he used his stick to beat back the grasses as he walked to the cleared edge of the river bank. 

Once there, Orlando slipped his suspenders. "How deep is it if I were to jump?" he asked, nodding toward the gently moving water beyond the shoreline as he unbuttoned his shirt.

"Seven, eight foot," Elijah replied. His eyes tracked Orlando's fingers as they unthreaded the button holes, glancing quickly up to make sure he hadn't been caught. 

Orlando stared at the water, a slow smile curving his lips. "This is going to be heaven," he said, then flashed Elijah a smile of abandoned glee. He dropped his shirt where he stood, his boots and socks following suit before he began to unfasten his pants. "You're joining me, of course."

"I..." Elijah looked away, lost for a plausible excuse. 

"You've got to be joking," Orlando laughed, skimming his trousers and underwear down his legs and stepping out in one smooth motion. "Too late to play shy, country cousin." With a whoop, Orlando raced towards the overhanging bank and leapt, legs tucked within his arms, easily landing ten feet out. He surfaced laughing, spinning to face the bank and calling out once more for Elijah to join him. He floated up onto his back, the dark pelt of his sex swirling in the water, his cockhead bobbing within it.

Elijah tried not to look at Orlando's nakedness, not to think about it, but the more he tried, the more it torched his thoughts until he couldn't even look in Orlando's general direction. 

Orlando spat a fountain. "Are you coming in?" he asked, waiting.

Elijah was absolutely horrified to feel blood pooling in his groin. He thought he might faint. 

"Elijah, look at me," Orlando said. He sounded amused.

Elijah hesitated, then glanced over. 

Orlando was holding his flaccid penis above the surface of the water. 

Mortified, Elijah's eyes bulged and he looked away quickly.

"It's just a cock," Orlando grinned. "A simple, ordinary -- much to my regret -- uncut cock. Now take a good look, then get your skinny arse into this river because, my man, we deserve not to have to cut another fucking tree for the rest of our lives."

If there had been any possible way for Elijah to turn and flee without seeming the most childish fool Orlando had ever met, his feet would have eaten the path back through the woods within a heartbeat. As it was, he wondered if it were possible for his nose to bleed from the pulsating heat flooding his face. He slowly put down his stick and began unbuttoning his shirt, studying each button hole as if it were the first time he'd ever performed this particular challenge. Orlando plunged to the river bottom and came back up as Elijah was removing his shirt. 

"Elijah, look," he said, folding in half and diving once more so that his behind floated to the surface. He popped back up, laughing. "And that's my white arse in case you need to check that out too. Yours might be the skinniest bottom, but I'll bet you a silver shilling mine's the prettiest."

Elijah couldn't help but laugh because anyone's ass was just plain comical. "Fuck off," he grinned nervously, testing the sound of the cuss word on his tongue and finding its level of boldness rather helpful in easing his self-consciousness. 

"There's the spirit," Orlando called out. "Now pull your dick out of your trousers and get in here!" 

Elijah set his back to Orlando and peeled off his pants and underwear. His renegade cock had taken on a tell-tale lift and he closed his eyes, his psyche cringing. He removed his glasses and set them down on his folded shirt.

"I'm not watching," Orlando yelled, finding Elijah's modesty refreshingly amusing, and Elijah could hear Orlando's voice being carried away from him and out onto the river. He glanced over his shoulder; Orlando was once more on his back, carving water angels on the surface, his feet pointed away from the shore.

Elijah raced to the edge and leapt. 

Days of heat had turned the stream into bathwater, where only the slower moving depths held the coolness. Elijah descended into it, pushing off the smooth stoned bottom and breaching the surface with a gasp. He whipped his hair from his eyes, searching for Orlando and for his bearings.

"Did I lie?" Orlando asking, cupping a palmful of water in Elijah's direction. "Is this not heaven?"

"Yeah," Elijah laughed, more to oblige than to agree. He'd never really considered anything in his world as being exceptional, certainly not something that someone from an exotic foreign land would find special. To him, it was just the swimming hole. 

He back paddled so as not to get too close to Orlando, certain that his treasonous cock would become an obscene version of Pinocchio's nose, capable of growing a foot every time he conjured an impure thought. He pinched his thigh to distract himself; he focussed on the far shore, trying to identify the cry of every bird he might hear there, then realized he was hearing none because of the August molt. Only the buzz of heat bugs spun out around them. He sucked in a lungful and dove again.

Looking up through the shadows, he watched as Orlando floated in a pinwheel, the sun's rays breaking all around him. The hazy filter of Elijah's myopia softened the bands of light, making them melt into shifting ribbons that accompanied Orlando's gentle rocking on the water's surface. Elijah surfaced and shook his hair out again. He wondered if Orlando found his incessant motion childish.

"I could fall asleep floating," Orlando murmured, his eyes closing. 

"If you did, you might float yourself all the way to the Mississip' delta," Elijah said, treading in place, still reluctant to flip up onto the surface. 

"Is that a fact," Orlando observed, opening one eye and tilting his head to look at Elijah. "I might end up in New Orleans, you say?"

"Mayhap," Elijah nodded. 

"That would be swell," Orlando smiled, his head sinking back into the surface, water oscillating in and out of his ears. "Jazz music and smoky women and bourbon whiskey. Would you like to go to New Orleans, Elijah?"

_I'd like to go anywhere_ , Elijah wanted to reply, but instead he said, "Maybe." 

"Maybe you should run away with me," Orlando teased, not thinking, not knowing.

_Don't_ , Elijah thought. He turned and paddled towards the shore.

"Elijah!" Orlando called out, quickly turning. "That was a stupid thing for me to say. Come back."

It was difficult climbing the bank without exposing himself. Elijah looked back and smiled. "I just don't want to swim no more, that's all," he lied. "You ain't said nothing bothersome." His wet foot slipped on the bank, and he slid back into the water, twisting towards Orlando as he fell. He made a big splash in an attempt to conceal and divert.

But Orlando had taken in the swell and rise of Elijah's cock. _Well, well_ , he thought, and he pursed his lips as he contemplated the young man's embarrassment, quickly readjusting the last five minutes -- in fact, the last five days -- to fit this new bit of knowledge. 

He slapped another palm of water in Elijah's direction. "Well, your brain might wish you weren't swimming but your white arse is thinking otherwise. You put new meaning to the term 'white boy'." 

Elijah's eyes went large as he froze and looked at Orlando.

Orlando's brows lifted in reply, and even without his glasses and across ten feet, Elijah could see the toothy smile baiting him.

"Speak for yourself!" Elijah gasped. He pounded his hand and water flew in Orlando's direction.

"Oooooo, the pup is annoyed," Orlando mocked, laughing, flipping water back, and the fight was on.

"At least my ass isn't hairy," Elijah called out amid the splashing, grateful that Orlando hadn't seen how truly like a pup he felt, his penis hanging out and all.

"The ladies love my hairy ass," Orlando rejoined. "It tickles their noses."

Elijah gasped and froze again. "That's...disgusting!"

Orlando cut a curtain of water that caught Elijah full in the face. "You wait and see," Orlando snickered. "You get a pretty lady down there whispering sweet nothings to your manly bits and you'll change your tune fast." 

"Stop, stop!" Elijah shrieked, his attack resuming. "I don't even want to think about it!" 

And he didn't. Because the idea made his gut twinge and was not helping his current plight, and he knew that it would fuel a week's -- no, no, a year's -- worth of nocturnal fantasies, only it would be Orlando's hot breath bathing his balls, oh God. "I'm getting out," he said, suddenly ending the game.

"Don't trip.." but Orlando quickly censored himself before he'd said _over your dick_. He turned away to give Elijah his privacy.

Elijah gained the high shore and slipped on his glasses, quickly using his shirt to dry down. He stuffed himself into his denims and buttoned up, sitting to dry his feet.

Orlando waded into the shallows and then climbed the bank, the dappled shade dancing on his wet skin. The week's work had darkened his forearms and hands, his face and neck. He shook his head like a wet dog, spraying Elijah with droplets. "Jeez!" Elijah yelped.

"So, I suppose now that we've swum, we need to go about the business of finding dinner," Orlando said, running his hands along his chest and thighs to remove the excess water. 

Elijah tracked his hands, then quickly looked away. "No rest for the wicked," he said, gazing out over the river, listening to the wind sough through the trees.

Orlando didn't have the heart to mention that he would be leaving, if not tomorrow, then the next day. He knew he'd come to mean something that would hurt Elijah when he left. Instead, he reached for his shirt and said, "I'm sorry I teased you. That wasn't fair."

"I said it was okay," Elijah replied and smiled weakly. 

"I know, but still." Orlando let the silence settle, then sat, stuffing his socks into his trouser pockets and slipping on his boots. He tied his laces, then hung his arms over his knees, smiling at Elijah. "Skinny arse," he murmured.

"Hairy butt," was the response.

"Let's go catch your pa some fish," Orlando said, and Elijah picked up his walking stick and stood.

***

"I'll catch up with you," Orlando said two hours later, stopping and putting his hand on the outhouse door. He pulled the cover-curled Poe out of his pocket and winked. 

"Careful in there," Elijah tossed back, continuing up the path. "Story ain't called _The Fall of the House of Shit_." 

"Clever, mate," Orlando laughed, giving Elijah the finger before disappearing inside.

*** 

The first time Orlando had seen Elijah bury fish guts between the rows in the garden, he'd nodded appreciatively, "So that's why your plants are so healthy. My gran used to do that." "Mine too," Elijah had replied.

So it was again that after gutting the day's catch in a basin, Elijah buried the offal among the tomatoes, then stored the fillets in a dish in the icebox. He pumped a bucket of water and headed out back of the barn to wash the smell off himself. He could hear his pa tinkering at his workbench as he passed the barn's open doorway and he stopped to tell him he'd been lucky and pulled in a pair of trout for dinner. Without looking up, the old man said, "Fine," and kept at what he was doing. 

Elijah lingered, patient for a little more praise, to turn the sour memory his father had left earlier in the afternoon into something better. He felt light-hearted, actually happy, and in his self-focussed naiveté, he figured the world was meant to feel that way, even his grumpy father. 

When the old man turned and finally looked up at him, Elijah's smile slid from his face and he fought the unease he felt under the expressionless gaze. "I just thought it would give you something to look forward to, s'all," he offered as if needing to justify his presence. 

For a moment his father said nothing, only stared at him. "It does," he finally said humorlessly. He looked back to his work and Elijah, recognizing the dismissal, turned towards the back of the barn. 

***

He was startled from his reverie when his father walked up to the washstand. Setting the soap aside, Elijah glanced up but the old man was staring past him, waiting silently. Elijah rinsed, then dried his hands on an old dish rag nailed to the barn's back wall. His father pocketed the handkerchief he'd been using to rub away some grease that had mucked his fingers. Elijah turned to him, and his father looked him in the eye. 

"I know what's going on in your head," the old man said caustically.

Orlando, having come up the path and now on the stoop just around the back corner of the house, heard the malice in the old man's voice and stopped, sliding quietly against the back wall by the wood box.

Elijah stared at his father, and his stomach churned sickly. 

"I seen how you look at him," the old man growled. "Don't think I ain't seen how your eyes crawl over his body."

"That's not true," Elijah whispered, stunned. His father had never spoken to him like this, never.

"You think he's the type would take up with the likes of you?" his father ridiculed. "You think he's queer like that?" 

"N-no!" Elijah blurted defensively, his heart crashing into his ribs and his face flooding with color. "I ain't that way."

"Boy, you've always been that way, think I don't know that? You think I can't tell when something ain't right?" The old man's hand came up to Elijah's face, and Elijah flinched, expecting the hit. Instead, his father brushed the backs of his knuckles across Elijah's smooth cheek, which was even worse. "You got your ma's prettiness, you can't help that." 

Elijah held his breath, eyes wide as he regarded his father. Orlando shrank back further against the wall, out of sight, straining to hear.

"Some things come into the world not right from the start," the old man said. His fingers stroked into Elijah's hair and then captured a fistful and yanked. Elijah yelped as his father leaned forward, mouth to Elijah's ear. "And you been one of 'em." 

Elijah began to cry. "Don't say that."

Orlando's jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists. He closed his eyes, breathing hard.

The old man yanked harder. "Come tomorrow, he'll be gone, and these evil, unnatural ideas you got in your head? You're gonna put 'em back wherever you took 'em out from, and don't you ever let 'em out again."

"I never thought nothing like that!" Elijah cried.

His father let go of his hair and Elijah drew back, his hand coming up to his smarting scalp. His eyes had filled with tears -- from fear, from humiliation and hurt, from pain -- and he blinked them back hard. 

"Because you keep on down that road, boy," and the old man's hand struck snake swift, a vice closing around Elijah's testicles, "I'll cut these off myself."

All the air rushed from Elijah's lungs as fiery pain consumed him, and he pitched forward, forehead slamming into his father's shoulder. Weakly, he tried to grab at the old man's forearms, barely aware of the grunting noises coming from his throat or the bile chasing it.

Orlando's fist flew to his mouth and he bit down to stop the cry that threatened to explode. 

The old man tugged, and Elijah's legs buckled. When the old man finally released his grip, Elijah slid down his chest, eye glasses knocked askew and mouth gasping the most pitiful sounds until he finally collapsed to his knees, his face disgracefully pressed to his father's groin.

"You better make sure this is the only time you kneel afore a man with your face smelling his privates," the old man bit out. He grabbed Elijah by the hair and flung him to the ground, where his son lay curled, hands between his legs, his glasses lying in the dirt beside him. "No son of mine will ever suck cock, you hear me, boy?"

Orlando's eyes flew open but all he could see was the hateful, perverse face of his own father bearing down on him. 

He had to get out of here. 

He turned away and crept along the wall, rounding the far corner of the house, where his eyes saw the road. He took several panicked steps towards it and stopped. 

God DAMN it! 

His pack was in the barn. The pack he never left unattended anywhere, that held everything he owned, was in the barn, a second washing still pegged to the back line. 

Orlando knew better than to spend another night here. The place now screamed that it was bad news looking to get worse. The more he stared at the road, the more it beckoned, and the shutters on reality began to slam one after another until all he could feel was fear and all he wanted was escape. He could see the next day and the next, all far away from here and safe, mercifully safe.

He'd fled a life and a country to be free of his ghosts. A pathetic broken-down homestead inhabited by two people he hadn't known five days ago was nothing in comparison. 

_Fuck Elijah_ , he thought, heart thundering, bitter at the conflict and remorse the young man caused him, the restraints Elijah's existence imposed. _Fuck_ him. And fuck that bastard that spawned him. They were not his problem. They _would not_ be his problem. 

There was no room for sympathy here. It was time to move on.

The final shutter rattled shut in Orlando's mind, and however sweet and good Elijah had seemed to Orlando over the better part of the past week, he now ceased to exist.

He would wait until nightfall, then pack his belongings and be gone.

Orlando leaned over, hands on his knees, and drew a deep, shaky breath. He glanced up at the road.

***

A ribbon of vomit hung from the corner of Elijah's mouth as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Despite everything he was feeling, his first thought was a panicky realization that he'd lost his glasses, and he squinted and gingerly felt the ground until his fingers located them and determined they were undamaged. The clasp on one of his braces had dug into the soft flesh between two of his ribs from the way he'd fallen on it; he touched the flesh gingerly, his fingers coming away with a slight smear of blood. His fear and horror at being confronted so fiercely by his father had given way to a sense of self-preservation; right now, he needed to take stock of all the physical discomforts currently registering themselves. Breathing rapidly, his jaw clenched, he fought the nausea that threatened, only to end up gagging and spitting phlegm. A sudden shiver convulsed him, and he realized how chilled he was without his shirt, his skin still wet, and now dirty, despite the heat of the day. Was it only a moment ago that he had been washing himself? It felt like it had taken place in another lifetime. 

He grabbed onto the edge of the wash stand and pulled himself up. The pain in his testicles left him unsteady but it was less acute; the memory of it, however, was not and it sparked another wave of nausea. He hated himself for feeling like a beaten dog; even more, he hated its familiarity. From the open doorway down the side of the barn, he could hear the rotating whir of the lathe, and he stumbled across the yard to the back porch, grateful that he would not have to cross paths with his father. If he could count on his old man for one thing, it was his pa's unerring instinct for knowing not to kick the dog he'd beaten when it was finally down. 

He made his way to his room and lay down, knees drawn up and open to ease the ache. In the quiet, he stared at the ceiling and let the tears come. They ran in endless, silent rivulets into his hair, the whorls of his ears, the bedding. He wanted nothing more than to disappear, to evaporate into thin air and be gone from this house and all its torment. He didn't see how he would ever reconcile what had passed between him and his father, how what had transpired wouldn't remain an unseen monstrosity that would always be there, neither of them ever able to see around it. It would become something you could almost touch, like an enormous rock. 

And it would now always be openly tethered to Elijah. He knew that he would never be able to look his pa in the eye without withering from the disgust and disappointment he'd see there. _Nevermore!_ he mused bitterly to himself, but it made him think of Orlando, and the pang in his stomach was so sharp and sudden that he cried out and curled around it. 

For Elijah knew Orlando had witnessed everything. 

When he'd left his father working in the barn and turned toward the washstand, he had seen Orlando stepping out of the outhouse far down the path. At the time, he'd even amusedly thought that more than a few stories must have been read given the length of Orlando's stay. He knew Orlando would head to either the washstand or the pump. And he'd wanted to make sure it was the washstand.

So he'd pretended he'd seen nothing. He'd pretended he'd been all alone, unobserved, not purposefully waiting for Orlando to come upon him so that they might spend another moment together. How much easier it was this way, just to pretend, than it had been at the swimming hole! He'd filled his pan and put the bucket down, dropped his braces and slowly unbuttoned his shirt, peeling it from his shoulders. Was Orlando stopping, he wondered as he soaped his hands? Was he thinking he'd rather stand close while Elijah slowly ran his palms and fingers over himself? Was he thinking that Elijah was the best thing he'd seen since crossing that ocean, that it didn't matter how far he'd travelled because his journey had always been drawing him to this washstand in the forgotten back hills of Tennessee? All Elijah knew was that he'd heard the muted footfall when Orlando had stepped up on to the back porch, he'd heard it stop and his heart had kick-started like an old jalopy, heat radiating through him. Yeah, Elijah figured he'd caught someone's attention. And the fact that they were right under his father's nose had raised the thrill of his fantasy that many more notches higher.

And then his father had walked up. And Orlando had done the cautious and considerate thing afterwards, and made himself scarce, left Elijah to hide his shame and lick his wounds. 

Whatever on earth had possessed him to make a such a ridiculous display of himself in front of someone who had been nothing but friendly and helpful since he'd arrived? How perverse was he to even think that Orlando would find him -- a pathetically poor, puny and uneducated country rat -- someone he might want? 

Elijah felt sick and ashamed to the depths of his being. 

Any hope Elijah had once held that Orlando would look at him with kindness or affection was forever destroyed. And somehow, this rejection by a stranger -- this beautiful, complete, brave and generous stranger -- was more humiliating for Elijah than any eternal contempt his father could possibly bestow. 

Elijah was finally and utterly exhausted by what he felt. His whole life had passed into new territory today, and he didn't think he could survive it. 

And, in truth, he thought he didn't really want to survive it.

 

The dinner hour came and went; he heard his father come in and fuss in the kitchen, then exit, more than likely taking something out to Orlando. It certainly wasn't trout. But Elijah did not get up, instead laying on his bed as the shadows lengthened and crept up the walls of his room.

***

"Hehhh," Orlando calmed, "shhhh." He reached into the brooding cage, fingers gently creeping beneath the hen to poke her up onto her legs while she took a few pecks at his arm. He withdrew one warm egg and set it next to one already hidden in the folds of the kerchief-lined palm. Two would have to do.

With sunset now an hour gone, there was barely enough light to see his way back to the stall where his bag was opened, awaiting this last parcel. He knelt before it.

He could sense him. 

"Elijah?" he whispered.

The straw rustled in one corner of stall. "I just come to say goodbye." Elijah's voice was quiet, flat. 

"Elijah...." Orlando sighed. There was no point in lying, in saying that he hadn't planned to leave without saying goodbye. 

"It's all right," Elijah spoke slowly, quietly. "I'd leave too if I was you. It's all right. I just wanted to see you once afore you go, that's all."

"Where's your father?" Orlando asked guardedly.

"Shit house."

_Good place for him_ , Orlando thought, imagining the old man buried deep in it as he stood atop the edge with the shovel.

"I can't stay long," Elijah said, and it was understood why. 

"I know, I know," Orlando hushed, setting the eggs at the top of his pack and shifting across the straw to Elijah. He settled back on his haunches in front of him. 

"I'll stay to see you go."

"Elijah," Orlando started, then hesitated. "I...heard. I heard what happened earlier today between you and your dad."

"I'm sorry for that," Elijah stated, devoid of emotion.

"No, you don't understand," Orlando said, reaching forward in the dark, then drawing his hand back.

Elijah said nothing. 

"I left England because of my family. My father beat me, many times. And I had relatives who....were no good." Orlando's whisper had turned to steel.

Elijah remained silent. 

"When I heard your father speaking to you, when I heard you cry out, I...remembered things. Awful things. Things that shouldn't be done to children, to sons." This time, when Orlando reached out, his hand found Elijah's forearm and closed on it. 

Elijah made an small, injured sound, as if the touch was too painful to bear. His entire body was shaking -- it probably had been the whole time he'd been hiding in the shadows, Orlando now realized -- and his skin was icy beneath Orlando's palm. "Ah, fuck," Orlando grimaced, and he sat forward, pulling Elijah to his chest. 

Elijah's fingers closed into fists, refusing to return a touch in kind. "It's okay, really," Elijah whispered, his voice hitching. 

"No, it's not," Orlando replied, stroking Elijah's hair. "It's not okay." He tipped his face into Elijah's scruffy, badly-cut and quivering hair. "It would never be okay," he whispered, holding the young man close. 

He inhaled Elijah's earthy sweat. The shaking breath, the sticky face against his neck, the hard, skinny body trembling beneath his hands -- why had he thought he could so easily abandon Elijah to the misery of this place? 

For more than a year, Orlando had been constantly moving, earning his keep, keeping his peace, sharing his time, his body, his food. But never had he tried, let alone considered, offering to another person a part of his heart or his spirit until this past week, when a raggedy-clipped young man -- no more than a boy, really -- had turned his magical, sad, near-sighted blue eyes upon him and beheld with awe everything that was simply Orlando. 

He held in his arms a humble young man starved for attention and friendship, who had nothing to offer but respect and affection, who knew that when Orlando left, his world would darken and shrink back to the stilted existence they both knew it to be. And yet Elijah had never clung or put onto Orlando any of his needs. Instead, he had shown and practiced charity freely. 

That a life of squalor and hopelessness should be the fate of someone so quietly remarkable made Orlando's heart ache. 

To hold Elijah was comforting, to smell him was real, and it seemed to Orlando that perhaps the two of them were where they belonged, maybe even where they were meant to be. He let out an anquished moan, despising how he could have ever been so careless and cowardly. 

He felt he would drown in the remorse of his own thoughtlessness. 

Elijah felt he would drown in his own.

Neither of them said anything for a long time. There was nothing to say.

"I am so stupid, Elijah," Orlando finally said after a time. "I've made a stupid, stupid mistake." 

But Elijah, not understanding, had already forgiven Orlando the manner of his departure. He allowed the words to wash over him without care for their meaning; every second moved closer to Orlando leaving, and the fleetingness of this moment -- clinging to the only intimate moment of his life -- was breaking his heart. 

"Come with me," Orlando whispered, turning into Elijah's ear. "There is nothing for you here. Come with me."

A tremor ran though Elijah; to be rescued from this misery had been a part of every prayer and every fantasy he'd had before falling asleep for as long as he could remember. 

But now that it was here, he realized it would forever be a dream.

He pressed his face into Orlando's neck. _Remember his smell_ , he told himself, and shook his head. 

"Elijah, listen, you have a choice." Orlando gripped him tighter. "There is hope. As much as you think there is no life for you beyond what you know here, believe me, there is." 

Elijah shook his head again. "Go," he whispered. "Please."

"Why?" Orlando held him closer.

"I can't."

"Never say that."

"No," Elijah said, pushing away. "You...wouldn't understand." 

"Tell me why!" Orlando whispered fiercely.

_Because_ , Elijah thought, but he knew the reasons would never be spoken. He knew Orlando must never discover that despite the denials he'd overheard Elijah give to his father, the truth was that Elijah was a deviant, something profane that Orlando had stumbled upon and would never abide. Far better that Orlando just go, and remember him this way. 

"Is it because you like me?" Orlando asked when he Elijah didn't reply, and he felt Elijah stiffen. "Is it because you like men? Is that it?" 

Elijah squirmed to pull away, the memory of his father's horror threatening, but Orlando gripped him tighter. "Stop!" he hissed. "Listen to me. You are not alone, Elijah. There are many like us in the world. Do you understand what I am saying? We learn to hide it, to keep our mouths shut and get on with it. And sometimes, when we're very, very lucky, we find each other. Do you understand what I am saying?" 

Elijah pushed against Orlando and stared back at him, his heart a hammer against the anvil of his chest, his mind a mad whir.

"Decide, Elijah," Orlando pressed. "I can't promise it won't be hard, but I do promise I will never abandon you." 

_Like us_ , Elijah kept thinking. He said _like us_. 

Through the whirling motes of darkness, Elijah searched Orlando's eyes, desperate not to find something there that would refute his words. 

He found only truth. 

And hope.

***

After midnight, when Elijah's father had resumed snoring following a piss into his tin can, Elijah arose from his bed, fully dressed and in silence. He took up the shotgun leaning against the wall by the kitchen door and quietly sprung the door catcher, leaving his house for the last time. Orlando was waiting for him by the back fender of the old man's truck -- two of its tires newly freed of air -- and together, the young man from the south of England and the youth from the Great Smokies slipped into the darkness, bound for California.


End file.
